It has been reported that airlines of South Korea temporarily suspended some international services to mainland China as strained diplomatic relationships have been souring.
The dispute has bubbled up due to ‘serious diplomatic discourtesy’ over comments regarding Taiwan.
As a news agency reported, Korean Air Lines will halt its Gimpo to Beijing route effective August 1st and through to October 28th.
However, the airline is yet to confirm this. KE will also pause its flights from Gimpo to Xiamen on October 28th.
Asiana Airlines plans to temporarily pause operations, with flights between Gimpo and Beijing broken from July 6th and another flight between Incheon and Shenzhen suspended effective July 8th, according to the news agency.
Relations are souring
As the list of South Korea to China flights being suspended continues to grow, Asiana has already decided to halt direct services between Incheon and Xian since June 20th and only expects many of these services to resume post-October 28th.
The souring diplomatic relations stems from the South Korean government denouncing China for its behavior and committing ‘serious diplomatic discourtesy’ after a Chinese official claimed recent comments from the South Korean President, Yoon Suk Yeol, were declared verbal meddling.
However, it is noted that the relationship between the two countries has been on edge for some time since China opposed the US deployment of Terminal High Attitude Defence anti-missile systems over six years ago.
The South Korean president has claimed that relations do not need to sour further and that the government of South Korea does plan to improve communication between the two states after comments sent the relationship into a downward spiral.
Demand dwindling
The suspension of flights between the two countries is believed to be due to the diplomatic challenges resulting in subdued demand for travel between the two Asian nations.
The number of passengers travelling between South Korea and China in April and May has dropped over 73.7%, according to a daily, totaling just 402,000 travellers, compared to pre-pandemic conditions.
It isn’t uncommon for airlines to suspend or cancel services where flights are experiencing low load factors and subdued demand; however, in this instance, the reason behind such results could be due to the current tense diplomatic relations.
The South Korean conservative government has been implementing a robust foreign policy heavily tilted towards pro-US and Japan routes, fueling the fire.
In addition to these diplomatic challenges, South Korea has been targeted as discriminatory with its travel restrictions, targeting travellers from China, as it exited its COVID-zero policy when the South Korean government claimed that over half of its positive COVID-19 cases were imported from mainland China.
Tags: airlines, Asiana Airlines, China, COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-zero policy, Korean Airlines, South Korea, travel restrictions
